From California to Brazil and Argentina, we had a very busy month. Even with all that travel, we were still able to enjoy the beautiful spring weather in New York and take Frasier on some fun walks and adventures. A near-perfect month.

For a lot of 2023, we’ve been on the road but never as much as in April. Before we hit the road we had the first few days of April at home. We took Frasier out on a shopping trip where Jenn spent way too much money at her new favorite store, Reiss. It was one of the first spring days we’ve had and on our walk back home we made a quick trip through Central Park which was packed.

A few days later Frasier was picked up to go to Far Fetched and Jenn and I went out to celebrate her raise and bonus at the St. Regis bar. This has become a routine stop for us before many trips and celebratory evenings. Jenn got a French 75 and I of course went with their Red Snapper (bloody mary). We really should go here more often.

And like that, we were back out traveling again. First thing on Wednesday morning we grabbed an Uber to take us to JFK. We dropped off our bags, went through Clear/TSA PreCheck, and made our way to the American Express Centurion Lounge to wait for our 7 AM flight to LAX. The flight to LA was uneventful, albeit a bit early in the morning, and we landed in Los Angeles a little after 10 AM. We grabbed our bags and made our way to Hertz where we picked up our Tesla Model 3 and started driving towards Menifee. On the way, we stopped at In-N-Out before continuing the drive. The plan was to see my parents as well as Amy, Gracie, and Cam but Gracie wasn’t feeling well so instead we just spent the afternoon with my parents. We left there a little after 4 PM and drove to Carlsbad to visit Ally, Tim, and Abby for dinner at one of our old favorites, Surf Brothers Teriyaki. It was a quick dinner and from there we charged the car up and went to the Hyatt Place a few miles from their house for the evening.

The next morning we picked up Jenn’s Dad at his house where Jenn surprised him with an overnight trip to Disneyland for his 70th birthday. I dropped them off at the Westin in Anaheim a little after 9 AM where they spent the rest of the day at both Disneyland and California Adventure. After charging the Tesla I drove to Riverside to spend the day with Amy, Gracie, and Cam. We walked to Castleview Park, played in the backyard, and Amy and I even went and grabbed a nice coffee. I left Riverside around 4 PM and went to Jake’s apartment in Santa Ana, and he drove me to dinner in Balboa at Arc Butcher & Baker. I had never been there before but between Jake’s pizza and my steak sandwich, I would 100% go back. By that point, I was exhausted and I drove from Jake’s apartment to the Renaissance where we stayed for the rest of our California visit.

The next morning I drove and walked around Fashion Island, grabbed my annual iced Vietnamese coffee at Blk Dot, and picked up Jake at his apartment. From there, Jake and I picked up Jenn at the Westin in Anaheim and drove back to Riverside. We met Amy, Ryan, and the kids at Anchos for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at their house. That evening we all went to KBBQ at the Riverside Plaza, it’s days like this that I miss the most about living in California.

My last day in California was on Saturday. That morning we drove back to Riverside and had some wine and charcuterie in their backyard and even threw the baseball around for a while. From there we drove to Menifee for a few days delayed Passover cedar. The entire family was able to come and although we abbreviated it for the kids it was still a very special evening. The next morning after trying to find an Uber Jenn drove me to LAX for my 9 AM flight back to New York on Easter Sunday. Jenn spent the day with her Dad and Joan in California before flying to Denver the next day for her team offsite.

Frasier arrived back on Monday and we had the entire week together. Each morning I would drop him off at Camp Canine and walk through Central Park to get to work. In the evenings I’d pick him up on my way back from work and we’d get a beautiful spring walk in. On Friday evening Jenn was finally home after her California & Denver trip.

Jenn had less than a week at home before we were off on our first vacation of the year to South America. For the next ten days, Jenn and I explored Brazil (Sao Paulo & Rio De Janeiro) and Argentina (Buenos Aires) in what turned out to be a perfect trip. I wrote up each day of the trip, but the headline would be that it was perfect. From the weather, to the tours, to the cuisine and the hotels we had a perfect trip and I cannot wait to travel again. We got back on Jake’s birthday (the 30th) and wrapped up a crazy busy month.

TV WE WATCHED

For not being home much this month I am sort of shocked at how much we watched this month. I would say we “dabbled” in a lot. Let’s go through some highlights. The first season of The Last of Us was a masterpiece it will easily be in my top-5 shows of the year. Even though I obviously knew what was going to happen I was raptured in the entire season. Jury Duty is another show I expect to be in my top-5 at the end of the year. An improv show where everyone are actors but one person, the entire thing was a chef’s kiss perfection. I have no idea how they pulled it off. And finally, the last season of Succession continues the extremely high bar of the past three seasons and I can’t wait to see where it concludes.

BOOKS I READ (OR LISTENED TO)

Stephen King never ceases to amaze me. I have no idea how he has such variety and beautiful ideas but Fairy Tale was one of my recent favorites of him. Like many of his previous books, I think it gets a bit convoluted towards the end but I wouldn’t trade the very fun journey for anything. Empire of Pain is a book I’ve owned for a while and it was just as good as everyone says it. A deep dive into the Sackler family, it was interesting, maybe a bit too much of a deep dive, but I enjoyed it and learned a lot.

MOVIES WE WATCHED

What’s funny is I watched all three of these movies on our flights home from Buenos Aires. Tetris was the best of the three, an entertaining, fast-paced movie that was probably not even close to what actually happened but very entertaining. I would describe Ghosted as a perfect plane movie, low stakes, not much to it. True Lies is a movie I’ve watched almost all in small chunks but it was the first time I watched it from start to finish.

THEATER WE SAW

Given our travel to both California and South America, we didn’t have a chance to go see a show in April. Hopefully that will change in May because there are a ton of shows we want to go see.

GAMES I'VE BEEN PLAYING

Given all of the travel in April, I didn’t have a ton of downtime to play games. The two I spent the most time with were MLB The Show 23 and EA Sports PGA Tour, but even that was scratching the surface.